Day 15: #On Repeat: Killing in the Name (Free writing)

Today’s Prompt: Think about an event you’ve attended and loved. Your hometown’s annual fair. That life-changing music festival. A conference that shifted your worldview. Imagine you’re told it will be cancelled forever or taken over by an evil corporate force. How does that make you feel?

Today’s twist: While writing this post, focus again on your own voice. Pay attention to your word choice, tone, and rhythm. Read each sentence aloud multiple times, making edits as you read through. Before you hit “Publish,” read your entire piece out loud to ensure it sounds like you.

I’ve been very quiet for a very long time.

I’ve only spoken up relatively recently.

Quiet, introverted. Trapped in a cage of assumptions, excuses and fears. Like the famous story of the elephant held in place by a string and and a twig.

I missed most of the nineties to depression and poverty. I didn’t get out, didn’t make friends, didn’t see the world.

Despite all of that I held onto my love of music.

In 2009 a Rage Against the Machine hero-fan organised a campaign to make Killing in the Name the Christmas No. 1 and it worked!

RATM promised their fans a victory concert if they made No. 1 and they kept their promise. A free concert in Finsbury Park in high June for all of their fans. The tickets were distributed by online lottery and. I. Got One.

I had missed all of my fave bands and singers in the nineties and I felt this was my last chance to see them. I don’t deal with crowds and drunkenness and deafening noise so (back then) if I went missing the last place the police would look for my body would be a rock concert.

It started slowly in the afternoon – the warm up acts, Roots Manuva was a stand out performance.

It rained a little while we waited for the main event I took out my umbrella because fuck getting wet. Pretty girl eased up to me and said “You’re the last person I’d expect to have an umbrella”

Best Day Ever.

RATM came on and the night exploded. We were all burning embers in an inferno. We jumped, and bounced off each other and laughed and cheered.

I went home and I didn’t know it then but I carried a spark home with me.

“And the fire rises” In the hindsight thats the day I stared to open like a flower. Grow, change

WHAT IF?

What if Rage Against the Machine had never reached No 1? What if there hadn’t been a concert? What If I hadn’t gotten hold of one of the free tickets?

The time travel trope you’ll most often find in sci-fi is someone going back in time and changing one small detail which then has disastrous repercussions.

If you wanted to stop me from ever becoming Smiley. If you wanted to stop me from rediscovering writing. If you wanted me to wither and die. If you wanted me to give up and crawl into a cubicle and die. That would be the moment.